8 Core CPU Platforms?

[Seanoog]

Hi Every One.
So the time has come to potentially retire my trusty i5 2500K System.
Long story short it's showing all the symptoms of a failing motherboard, with cold boot cycling too random crashes while under load and at stock clocks. I am going to pull the system apart tomorrow, but I don't hold much hope for finding a culprit other than the motherboard + ram, perhaps need reseating.

As per the thread title, what platforms support 8 Core CPU's that are presently available
and will be available in the Future? These are the Four platforms that I am aware of, have I missed any?

AMD AM4 + Ryzen 7 (1800X or 2700X.)
AMD TR4 + Threadripper (1900X)
Intel S2066 + Skylake (7820X.)
Intel S1151 + Icelake (9700K. H2 2018 Release?)

Any potential system will be used for gaming extensively
(GTA5, FarCry5, Kerbal Space Program, Hitman 2016, Witcher3 and Assassins Creed Origins.)
Will also be used for common daily activities like software analysis + profiling, Chrome, video encoding and solitaire.
Most of my present system will be used for donor parts, including Case, PSU, Hard Drives, Nvidia 1070 and a Dell U3014 (2560x1600) Resolution.

I am aware as a gamer 4-8 Cores is recommended.
High IPC + Low latency ram + High system clocks. But I feel that with consoles been 8 Cores, a gaming system should have that number of cores minimum in 2018. I have no budget in mind at this time, just starting out with my research.

So which system would you recommend?

 

[Seanoog]

Thank you everyone.
I appreciate the thread was a difficult one, I asked about platforms and then mostly answered my own question, but I wanted to be specific, and know what routes where available to me.

Have got some experience on all of those platforms, if gaming is your main focus and budget in not an issue then 7820X is top of the the tree IMO (if 8c16t is your target)

However I do not see longevity on the 2066 platform as Intel will need to go a different way to compete with the AMD offerings on price - decent mobos are quite expensive as well on s2066.

TR4 is good IMO - but I'm only an occasional gamer, my own TR system is a lab in a box for me - and Intel cant get near it for performance per £ - unless you willing to got second hand Xeons on skt 2011. The 1900x is the fastest clocking TR chip - but the motherboards are expensive (£260+), personally I don't think it's worth going TR unless you take the 1920X or above though. 1900X can now be found online for less that top of the line Ryzen 7 chips - so it's swings and roundabouts really, awesome options for building a system though, - you get an outrageous number of PCIE lanes to use which really adds a lot of flexibility that is simple not available on other platforms without a really large spend.

You've mentioned Icelake - TR4 will be getting refreshed threadripper in the same kind of time frame - so might be worth putting on your list.

Best bang for buck 8 core right now, and for the foreseeable future IMO is Ryzen 7 on AM4 - yeah it will not win against a 6 core Intel as a pure benchmarking machine today - but it's really damn close for a lot less money, and software seems to be getting better and better in supporting higher core count CPUs which should give it a decently long life.

If your considering every option it may also be with a look at Xeon-W and Xeon Gold - I highly doubt these will be an economical option though!

Thank you BongoHunter.
I had never even though of the Xeon Platforms. So that's some extra home work over the coming weeks.

I am truly spoilt for choice, from AMD's Ryzen to Threadripper to Intels mainstream offerings. But at this time I don't think I am in the market.

After tearing my system apart, reseating the ram, and double checking all cables where fully connected.
I did notice my ram is specified as been 1.6volts. Now I know Sandy bridge recommended ram at only 1.5volts.
So it's possible as the parts aged they are needing more power to operate.
So I upped the power to 1.575volts. And the system is significantly more stable.

I still get a odd cold boot start hiccup (cycles once or twice, then starts.)
But I have no problems now with the system running Prime95 or gaming for hours at 4.6Ghz which has always been my over clock.

As it stands if my system is stable for the foreseeable future, I won't be upgrading.
As for what Platform I'd like to upgrade too in the future, I'd like Icelake.
As I don't upgrade often, and with 32GB of high speed ram, an aggressive overclock, with a new GPU it would easily meet my gaming and workload requirements.
But time will tell.

Again thank you all for reading and contributing.

 

[Seanoog]

Will you ever be going high refresh rate ? If your going to stick with the 30 inch monitor then wait for the new ryzen and that should serve you well

I'd love to upgrade the monitor.
But what monitor is worth my money, that's 120hz 16:9 and larger than 30"?
Has it really got to a stage where high specification OLED or QLED TV's
are superior too monitors for gaming and movies?

TR4 and Socket 2011 are more about what's on offer from the motherboard and although they offer a lot more features it's debatable if it's worth stumping up the extra money for gaming system.

At the current prices a Ryzen 1700/1800 is hard to look past, but I'd hold off until Ryzen plus is out before deciding.

I'll be honest I haven't looked further into motherboards or a new CPU at this time.
I have fixed my Sandy Bridge system sufficiently, that it boots and plays every game I throw at it
while been stable.

But when I upgrade in the future (When the Sandy Bridge system stops working.)
I'd need a motherboard that supports 8+ SATA3 Ports. That's commonly available
on mainstream systems now?

I wouldn't prefer these Mesh architecture CPUs - low overclockability, high inter-core communication latencies etc.

Ring Bus architecture is perhaps the best design for gaming in the past years and I'd like to see that on the 9700K if possible (though I'm not sure whether past 6 cores it would become less efficient than Mesh).

I remember reading about the Intel change recently, relating to the change away from Ring Bus, too Mesh Architecture. And thank you for reminding me of the potential ramifications to gaming.

Similarly, doesn't Ryzen us a mesh like CCX architecture?
And that may be part of the reason why it's slower in games (Also lower overclock potential, partly due to manufacturing process?) But generally Ryzen and Thread-ripper are beast's in workload (Rendering and Trans-coding applications, to name a few.) When been compared to Intel counter parts.

Again thank you every one for contributing to the thread.